Saturday, 22 August 2015

Death of an Avid Reader - Frances Brody

This looked as though it would be a
fairly gentle Christie-imitation murder-mystery – a widowed
lady-detective searching for the long-lost illegitimate daughter of a
titled lady on her deathbed, while investigating the murder of a
university professor found dead in her local library. This seems to be the second novel in a series, but enough was explained that I didn't feel left behind.

To begin with, the setting and
characterisation ambled along, and it took me a while to warm up to
Kate Shackleton, the central detective. However, around the halfway mark, the plot picked up the pace and the story became more
intriguing, and I found myself really wanting to find out the
answers.

Once I gave them time the characters
rounded out more and the story began to feel more compelling,
including some surprisingly gritty aspects for what seemed on the
surface an essentially respectable detective story, and some
genuinely surprising twists.

Overall, a slow start, but a detective
novel which comes into its own and turns into a mostly pleasant,
easy-to-read but still attention-grabbing story.